This morning I sit, my mind meandering down old memories. I awake to the crisp dewy morning as I watch the steam rise from the earth and my first yawn blow out billows of smoke. The seasons are changing and days are growing colder. The dawn of Autumn, the cusp of winter. A Season for reflection, to harvest. How powerful and heart opening this journey is. Be raw, be the wounded soldier within just for a moment, but do remember how grateful moments like these are. A time to honour the seasons within and without.

What if instead of setting our intentions every year in January, we had this season of reflection, Autumn, to firmly set these goals in motion? In this cycle, we are supposed to reflect on ourselves, let what needs to fall fall back into the earth. Trees and plants spread their seeds, so why don’t we? If we could sit with this letting go of the old and reflect on what we would like to bring into this new cycle we will forever be growing.

How to welcome the change in seasons this Autumn?

Light a Candle

Tis the season for the sweet smell of burning bees wax! Lighting a candle also helps to call yourself present. I love to light candles as the days grown colder and darker.

2. Create your sacred space

What would it feel like to be cradled? Create that warm, nourishing space for yourself and go there from time to time to reflect and be with the wisdom within. My scared space changes from time to time and I almost enjoy creating it the most. I roll out my felted rug, gather my journals, books, pillows, blankets, sacred objects…

3. Journal

When you have settled into your sacred space, pull out your journal. What is alive in you at the moment? Write whatever arises down…sit with that a moment and play with creatively writing what “harvest…letting go…inward…” means to you. You may be called to reflect on your last season cycles, writing everything from emotions to events. After letting go of the old stories, write down your new intentions for the following seasons. Journaling for me is medicine, it is a straight portal to the wisdom that lies beneath our bones. Come back to this as often as you like.

4. Nourish

As the day grow colder, our bodies are needing more nurturing and warmth. Tea is sacred in this season and there is something about listening to the tea kettle blow and the crackle of fire. Herbs like, oatstraw, nettle, sage, rose, ginger, tulsi, linden and many more are just a few that I brew for nourishment. Tea is always your best friend and provides the mind, body, and spirit with everything you need at exactly the right time. Slow cooked meals are also vital as the day grow darker. Onions, leeks, roots, spices, broths, seaweeds, oils, beans are what is usually stewing in the kitchen for me. Most importantly, listen to your body and go slow! Enjoy slow meals with long mingling chatter with friends and family by the fire!

5. Gather

Make time to check up with each other, to hold each other, to laugh with one another, to tell stories and sing songs. As much as this season is an inward one, community is key! My spirit is always lifted after a beautiful gathering with friends and family sharing home cooked food! Create a gathering, whether is be a sister circle, a men craft night, or a shared potluck!

Enjoy the nourishment and sweet tenderness of fall and may all beings be blessed and honour their blessings!

I am one amongst many who have had a big story tied to my birth. Born in hospital and taken away from my mother for hours. My placenta, my ever growing life force in my mothers womb, had been tossed away in a hazardous waste bag and my Miwi (soul) had been left behind. Thru my recent curiosities I have discovered this remembering of our sacred wounds and wombs. Birth is a ceremony, it is our first spiritual imprint and awakens our soul to our paths destiny.

During my fist opening gathering with jane, my teacher at the School Of Shamanic Womancraft, shared with us this spiritual bioenergetic activation. Honouring our once lost life force, the placenta, and symbolically burying it into the earth. This act of giving our placenta to the earth aligns us to our purpose in life and brings deep connection and guidance from mama earth. It is said that by not honouring this we forget our lives purpose and feel lost in this world.

On the dusk of the new year, January 1st 2017, my 21 year old self had honoured my past and buried my rock “placenta”. Beneath the pomegranate tree in my mamas land. As I gathered my sacred offerings and alter pieces I felt an energetic connection to this ceremony I was doing. Choosing to do this by myself and honouring my souls connection with mother earth. I chose my fairly large rock, that resembled my placenta and laid it in the earth. I lit my candle and smudged the energy. Standing strong, grounded, barefoot on the earth I felt a knowing. This journey I am on is my souls medicine. I am here to heal and share my wisdom for those in need. I am here to love, to express, to feel, to remember, to share, to support, to live!

These words below are from Jane and the wisdom passed down from an aboriginal woman, Minmia:

“The proper birthing process will connect the child to the oneness so they are more able to handle the chaos to come – they will be more grounded.

It gives the child the strength to live a connected life.

One-ness is the key, absolutely and from now on…

She instructed me on what to do about this, as she has already with many other women over the years.

Her focus was on the spiritual role of the umbilical cord and placenta for the baby’s wellbeing.

Firstly, placentas are not ‘hazardous waste’, they hold, on the side that is connected to the mother, the baby’s Miwi print, which in Minmia’s words is the baby’s life journey map, their soul’s destiny this lifetime.

She says that what’s meant to happen is this:

Babies are born, the cords are not cut but are left until they stop pulsing. With the cord still pulsing, and as the baby takes its first breath, information is transferred to the baby from the placenta via the cord, on how to follow the map, their Miwi print. Later, the placenta and cord are buried in the earth and so the baby’s Miwi print goes into Nungeena-tya. The Miwi print lies there until Nungeena receives the child’s first seed. For girls that’s their first blood, their menarche, for boys its their sperm from their first wet dream of puberty.

As it (the child’s first seed) hits the earth, the seed is recognised instantly, almost as if it enters a computer data system. Nungeena-tya then goes back to wherever the Miwi print was buried and locks it in. She then acts to ground and guide the ‘wanai’ (post puberty, adolescent) on her/his journey throughout this physical life.’[i]

And this is when you (the adolescent) start receiving your teaching and learning the lore/law.’

When they fall down or get knocked down, Nungeena-tya will anchor them and pull them back up. They will always be very close to their path if not right on it.[ii]

For those people who’s placentas were not buried in the earth and were probably either burnt or destroyed together with other placentas, they still eventually get to the earth but their Miwi prints are melted together with others and so they are confused. They are spiritually and emotionally confused and can’t fulfil their journey.